Nexus One: $174.15 in Parts, $355.85 in…er…Incidentals

If you were to build it yourself, Google’s new Nexus One superlative-phone would set you back about $174.15, according to a teardown conducted by iSuppli. (See table at right; click to enlarge.)

That’s almost $5 less than the $179 T-Mobile is charging for the device with a two-year service plan. But its about a third of the phone’s unsubsidized price–$530.

Which is interesting because, according to Google (GOOG) VP of Engineering Andy Rubin, the guy who quarterbacked the Nexus One’s development, smartphones, even “super” ones–shouldn’t be that expensive. “The thing I carry around in my pocket every day…shouldn’t cost four hundred dollars,” Rubin once told Ken Auletta, author of “Googled: The End of the World As We Know It.” “That’s absurd. If you add up all the components, somebody is making a lot of money.”

That somebody, in this case, would appear to be Google–though to be fair, iSuppli’s analysis doesn’t account for manufacturing, packaging, and software expenses, not to mention R&D costs, which are likely quite substantial.

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